A collection of murder, mystery &suspense authors from Michigan. While we hope to bring you events off the Internet as well, we want to provide you insight to these wonderful novels that either take place in the greatest state or are by authors from this great state.
In the meantime, we hope to blog you to death.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Mystery is not just a genre but an emotion that can be used in
any story. Here are ten tips to help you create mystery in your story:

1.
Setting and Tone. Yes, when it comes down to it, the setting and tone
of your book is very important, and sometimes amateur writers take them
for granted. A true writer will take advantage of the setting to play
into whatever emotion they want to give. An affective setting can be
scary, delightful, or even mysterious.

For example: A room
suffocating with dust and clothed in cobwebs with newspaper clippings
cluttering the walls is a mysterious place. It makes you want to know
what is on those newspaper clippings and who put them on the walls.

By far, the best way to make your writing mysterious is by writing mysteriously. It's all about your tone!

2.
Give your characters a secret. When your protagonist has a secret, your
reader will want to know what it is -especially when he/she fears that
their secret is going to come out and vows to do anything to prevent
that from happening.

3. Give your characters a past. Just as
mysterious as a secret worth dying (or killing) for, is a past that
keeps haunting your protagonist and/or antagonist. Revealing their past
one piece at a time will keep your readers curious, but make sure that
you tell them all there is to know by the time you get to the climax.

4. Put a mask on your antagonist. When your protagonist and readers do not know who the culprit is it guarantees mystery.

5.
Show your characters point-of-view. I'll say it again because I can't
say it enough: Revealing your protagonists' and antagonists' thoughts
and feelings is extremely important to not only help your readers
connect with them, but to also provide suspense and, of course, mystery.

6.
Use emotional responses. How we react to certain things can be very
mysterious. Perhaps your protagonist becomes angry when another
character says or does something. The reader will want to know why they
responded that way.

7. Pose questions. Bringing mystery into your
story can be as simple as asking a question and not revealing the answer
right away.

8. Reveal clues. This is especially important for
murder mysteries. Start by uncovering small clues that seem strange and
irrelevant but leads to the bigger picture, whatever that may be.

9.
What all of the above boils down to is to be secretive! Even if you're
not writing a mystery novel and you
don't have an antagonist, you can
still create mystery by being secretive and not telling your reader
everything right from the get-go. Instead, draw out the anticipation by
revealing the facts one at a time.

10. The most effective method
in my opinion is to keep your readers guessing! Throw something at them
that makes them believe someone else is the murderer, or provide a plot
twist that will cause your readers to doubt what they thought they knew.

Chrys Fey created Write With Fey, a how-to blog about writing a
novel. Every Tuesday there is a new post containing tips, inspiration,
insight into her series, and much more. http://www.writewithfey.blogspot.com

Monday, July 22, 2013

Every writer has tips that help them write, rules they follow,
and methods they use. Below are ten tips that I find helpful when I am
writing action.

1. Show action and reaction. In a fight, every
movement from one person causes a reaction with their opponent. What
happens when someone receives a punch?

Their head turns with the impact,
they stagger, and sometimes they fall. Bones breaking and blood gushing
is also a reaction.

Examples of action-reaction:
• He shot off a round of bullets. She dodged them and fired back.
• Her fist connected with his face, breaking his nose.

2.
Describe, describe, describe! Remember that prose we were talking about?
Use it here but go above and beyond! Give a crime scene details so that
the reader can see the morbid site imprinted on their eyes. Describe
each step of a fight, the cocking of a gun, and the pain a character
feels from injuries. Bring a car accident to life with speed, bending
metal, and shattering glass. Let your words make the suspense!

3.
Use action verbs! If you can, try not to use the same verbs over and
over again. A thesaurus can help you to find a good alternative.

4. Write short sentences. Short sentences quicken the readers pace and give the illusion of fast action.

5.
Use "All of a sudden" and "Suddenly" sparingly. Back-to-back paragraphs
starting with this will become annoying to the reader and is a bit
lazy.

6. Don't forget dialogue! Action is not all about what a
character does, but also what a character says. Have your characters
spit threats back and forth, and let them curse. Also, injecting a
characters thoughts can add a great deal of suspense.

This is it, he thought, I'm going to die.

7. Read books by your favorite authors and study how they write action. Note words and phrases they use, but don't plagiarize!

8.
Get into the mood for writing action. Listen to rock music or any kind
of song with a fast beat that makes you want to get up and cause havoc.

Songs that help me write action:

* Shoot It Out by 10 Years
* Your Betrayal by Bullet For My Valentine
* Hold On by All That Remains
* Blood On My Hands by The Used
* I Will Not Bow by Breaking Benjamin

9. Act it out. Remember
when I said that I sometimes talk aloud to create dialogue between two
of my characters? Well, I also act out fight scenes. Granted, I can't
move or do half the things a fighter can do, but by acting it out (the
best I can) I can understand how a body moves and better describe the
movement with words.

10. Watch action movies. Watching movies can
help you to understand the rhythm and flow of fighting. It can also give
you ideas. Depending on what you need to write, find movies that show a
lot of it and then study them. How do the characters move in fight
scenes? What do you see when there is an explosion? Now, write the scene
in your book as if you are watching it unfold on a television screen.
This is how I do it and it is my best strategy for writing action.

Chrys Fey created Write With Fey, a how-to blog about writing a
novel. Every Tuesday there is a new post containing tips, inspiration,
insight into her series, and much more. http://www.writewithfey.blogspot.com

Abandoned Property

Kai Mann is the author of 30 Day Noticeand her newly published book Abandoned Property. She is an independent contract writer for Examiner.com as Detroit’s Best Friend Examiner, a member of the Motown Writers Network, and a contributor to the online poetry community. Kai’s purpose is to inspire thoughts pertaining to the themes of love, friendship, self-love, and self-progression.

These characters all have something in common; they’ve been abandoned. Even though their issues of abandonment stem from some of the same situations, how they play out is different in nature. Will
they go to the extreme opposite to ensure that the cycle ends with
them? Or will they realize the blessings in being abandoned by people
who never knew how to care for them in the first place?
Get your copy, click here.

One day while sending out
copies of my first novel 30 Day Notice a clear concept came to me about my next
book. The book was to be called Abandoned Property. The plot for one of the
male characters Darius was given to me in detail. I use the term “given to me”
because I belief that the crux of my stories come from the Creator and are not
my own. I remember driving home from the post office excited and talking
everything out while in the car. I can imagine now that I probably looked crazy
to anyone driving near.

The full story didn’t come to
me until almost the end of the book. I started out writing down the characters,
their characteristics on two white boards in my office. I wanted to be sure
that I told who they were and what I wanted to convey in the stories about each
character. As I wrote in those characteristics I would erase them until I had
touched on everything for each character.

When I started to write the
stories I started writing for one character at a time and decided somewhere
after the tenth chapter that I should probably begin to put them in order so
that the jist of the story flowed freely. There were times that I was writing
chapters and was so excited by where the stories were going that I would even
get up and do a little jig.

I have never written a book
non-stop. I write until my thoughts of the story run out and as ideas and
concepts come to me I add them to the story.

My writing style is not one of
a schedule but I try to let the creativity come to me and not force myself to
fill pages. I try to take the time to listen to my inner thoughts so I don’t
miss anything. After I have written the final page I don’t go back to change
anything until after my editor has looked at it. Once my editor has taken a
look at my manuscript is when I go back and make necessary changes.

Writing for me is an essential part of who I am. I feel like
I am in a perpetual stroke of the pen because even when I am not physically
writing, I am mentally writing.

Monday, July 15, 2013

I started writing when I was twelve years old and the series that
I created then is the four-book series that I am finishing now. No one
can ever tell me that writing a series is useless or that trying to get
one published as an unpublished writer is impossible because I will not
listen. Writing is my life! My series is my life! I am not writing it
because I think it will get me published, I am writing it because it
burns inside me, and I want to publish it to share it with others who
would appreciate it.

Writing a series really shows your commitment
to the art of writing, and to the love you have for the first book in
the series, because if you feel the undeniable urge to continue that
story then that book you just wrote is a powerful creation. However, you
shouldn't write a series just to write a series. There has to be a
reason for it; a story line that can be built upon and expanded through
three or more books.

The role of the first book in a series is
just like any other book. It has a beginning that captivates, a middle
that informs, and an end that explodes. It introduces the characters and
the story, but it also has to make readers want to read more.

The
books that follow the first in a series have to grow and essentially
get better. After all, no one wants to read a series where the first
book is the best. What would even be the point of writing a sequel if
it's not as good as, or better than, the first? Essentially, the second
book has to remember everything that happened in the first one, but at
the same time it also has to create a new story.

What happens in
each book has to quilt together even if the plots of each book are
vastly different, which is the catch! A series is a segment of stories;
each is different but they are all linked together.

Whether your
series is four books long or thirty, each book has to grow. Perhaps not
in pages but with the overall impact: what happens, what's at stake,
what the protagonist goes through, etc. Then the very last book has to
tie all the books together with a tidy little bow. It also has to be
more explosive than all the others. More importantly, it has to end the
entire series, which is a big job.

Don't feel daunted though! Your
characters will tell you how the series should end, so listen to them!
If you do get stuck, take a step back to clear your mind. And don't be
afraid to rewrite!

Chrys Fey created Write With Fey, a how-to blog about writing a
novel. Every Tuesday there is a new post containing tips, inspiration,
insight into her series, and much more. http://www.writewithfey.blogspot.com

Monday, July 8, 2013

Nothing is more thrilling than a fight whether it's in a real
life, on a movie screen, or in a book. But writing one is not nearly as
easy as witnessing one. First, you'll need to decide what kind of fight
you want to write. There are four options you can choose from:

Of course, you could do a mixture of all four as I have, but that is also four times more complicated to write.
After
you decide what type of fight will be in your book, you need to know
how to create action through writing. This can be done with
action-reaction, revealing prose, action verbs, fast pace, and exciting
dialogue.

When you understand the methods to show action, you need
to do some research to learn how to give details to a fight. This can
be achieved by talking to professionals in the art of combat and weapon
specialists. If you do not have these resources at your disposal, the
next best thing is to use the internet for a crash course, or to study
books that you can find at the library.

Along those notes, I
highly recommend reading fictional books with an abundance of action to
find out the author's secrets. Many fiction crime novels (mysteries,
suspense, etc.) have fights of all kinds in them. Once you read them,
you'll have a much better grasp on how to write fights. And I can almost
guarantee that you will enjoy reading them too.

TIP: Before you
begin writing the fight, plan out key moments of the fight first. This
will make the process of writing the fight much easier!

Once all
of your research is done, it's time to write the fight! Picture the
fight in your head and write it out the best you can with as much prose
as possible.

* Who are the players in the fight?
* What causes the fight to start? (Tell us why the characters are fighting, lead us up to the action.)
* Do they use weapons? (Guns, swords, daggers, fists, supernatural
powers? You can also put a little creativity into the objects they use
on each other.)
* What do they do in the fight? (Describe every move, every hit.)

Every
movement in a fight is followed by another movement either by the
character giving it (another movement in their attack sequence) or the
character receiving it (their reply to the hit with an attack of their
own). When one character hits another, show the reaction of that hit. Do
they stagger, bleed, or fall?

* How does the atmosphere aide or complicate the fight? (Describe their surroundings.)
* Are words exchanged? (Are curses spat at each other? Are threats exchanged?)
* Describe the pain the protagonist feels and his/her thoughts.
* Finally, how does it end? (Who wins? Who loses? Describe the physical damage.)

TIP: I find that listening to music rock music really helps when I am writing fights, and I have written too many to count!

As I said before, writing a fight is not easy, but it can be fun!

Chrys Fey created Write With Fey, a how-to blog about writing a
novel. Every Tuesday there is a new post containing tips, inspiration,
insight into her series, and much more. http://www.writewithfey.blogspot.com

Monday, July 1, 2013

Suspense makes your reader's heart pound uncontrollably, their
hands sweat around your book, and drives them to read faster so they can
turn the page to find out what is going to happen next.

Not every genre calls for suspense, but if your story is driven by it then here are ten tips to help you build suspense.

1.
Plot is the biggest key to suspense. To being with, you have to create
events in your story that can be suspenseful like a fight, a kidnapping,
a car accident, etc.

2. Setting and tone. A place can be very
suspenseful -especially if it's a dangerous place such as an alley, an
abandoned building, or a drug dealer's home. Lighting is also a factor
in suspense. If your protagonist is in pitch darkness and can't see two
inches in front of their face, the suspense is much higher.

Tone
is equally important. Actually, aside from plot, tone is more important
than anything else is. If you use a dark suspenseful tone then you
heighten the suspense just with your voice. Imagine you are telling a
scary story, how would you talk to your audience to create suspense and
fear?

3. A good protagonist and a good antagonist can make all the difference.

4.
Show your character's point-of-view. Whatever sort of suspense you are
creating, it should always be your top priority to reveal what your
protagonist is thinking and feeling. When you show their fear to the
reader, then your reader will fear too.

Don't just focus on the
protagonist though. Take the opportunity to get into your antagonist's
mind. Just by revealing their twisted thoughts and motives, you are
building the suspense.

5. Use short sentences and fast pace. Just
like when you're writing action, a fast pace means there's more action
and more suspense.

6. Set a time limit. Nothing creates more
suspense than a ticking clock, like a bomb that is counting down its
last seconds. Perhaps your character is a detective investigating a
series of crimes and they have to catch the suspect before they kill
again. Have the antagonist reveal that he/she is going to kill again in a
certain amount of time then make your protagonist scramble to try to
stop him/her.

7. Create high stakes. Your character's life (or the
life of someone they know), their sanity, or the fate of the whole
world could be on the line. It's up to you! Whatever the stakes are,
make the threat and the danger real. If there is a bomb, make it come
within seconds from going off. Heck, make it go off just as your
character is escaping. Now that is suspenseful!

8. Set the odds
against the protagonist. If there is no struggle, there is no suspense!
It has to seem almost impossible, or that the protagonist may not win
after all. Throw complications and dilemmas at your protagonist left and
right, something that will make them stumble in their investigation or
cause a problem.

9. Fear! Using the protagonist's fears against
them is a sure way to build suspense because when you use fear, suspense
is right around the corner. You can even play into your reader's
phobias by writing about fears many people share, like the fear of
spiders, drowning, heights, etc.

10. And my favorite weapon to use
to build suspense is... SURPRISING THE HECK OUT OF YOUR READER! This is
the best way to build suspense and is quite fun to do when you know
that your reader won't ever suspect what you just wrote. A twist in the
plot will make their jaws drop and their minds race. After all, when
your story is unpredictable it has suspense written all over it.

Chrys Fey created Write With Fey, a how-to blog about writing a
novel. Every Tuesday there is a new post containing tips, inspiration,
insight into her series, and much more. http://www.writewithfey.blogspot.com